Japanese Buddhist Art & Architecture

General

Bogel, Cynthea J. "Canonizing Kannon: The Ninth-Century Esoteric Buddhist Altar at Kanshinji." The Art Bulletin 84, no. 1 (2002): 30–64.

Brinker, Helmut and Hiroshi Kanazawa. Zen: Masters of Meditation in Images and Writings. Museum Rietberg. Zürich: Artibus Asiae, 1996.

Carr, Kevin Gray. Plotting the Prince: Shōtoku Cults and the Mapping of Medieval Japanese Buddhism. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2012.

Eubanks, Charlotte. "Illustrating the Mind: 'Faulty Memory' Setsuwa and the Decorative Sutras of Late Classical and Early Medieval Japan." Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 36, no. 2 (2009): 209–230.

Fister, Patricia. Amamonzeki: A Hidden Heritage – Treasures of the Japanese Imperial Convents. Tokyo: Sankei Shinbunsha, 2009.

Fister, Patricia. "Creating Devotional Art with Body Fragments: The Buddhist Nun Bunchi and Her Father, Emperor Gomizuno-o." Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 27, no. 3 (2000): 213–238.

Fister, Patricia. "Visual Culture in Japan's Imperial Rinzai Zen Convents: The Making of Objects as Expressions of Religious Devotion." In Zen and Material Culture, edited by Pamela D. Winfield and Steven Heine, 164-196. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.

Foulk, T. Griffith and Robert H. Sharf. "On the Ritual Use of Ch'an Portraiture in Medieval China" Cahiers d'Extrême-Asie 7 (1993–1994): 149–219.

Fowler, Sherry D. Murōji: Rearranging Art and History at a Japanese Buddhist Temple. Honolulu HI: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005.

Foxwell, Chelsea. "Merciful Mother Kannon' and Its Audiences." The Art Bulletin 92, no. 4 (2010): 326–347.

Foxwell, Chelsea. "The Pulled Back View: The Illustrated Life of Ippen and the Visibility of Karma in Medieval Japan." Archives of Asian Art 65, no. 1/2 (2015): 25–56.

Gerhart, Karen M. The Material Culture of Death in Medieval Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2009.

Goepper, Roger. Aizen-Myōō: The Esoteric King of Lust: An Iconological Study. Zurich: Artibus Asiae and Museum Rietberg, 1993.

Graham, Patricia Jane. Faith and Power in Japanese Buddhist Art 1600–2005. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2007.

­­­Huntington, Susan L. "Early Buddhist Art and the Theory of Aniconism." Art Journal 49 (1990): 401-408.

Ikumi Kaminishi. Explaining Pictures: Buddhist Propaganda and Etoki Storytelling in Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2006.

Joji Okazaki, Pure Land Buddhist Painting. Trans. by Elizabeth ten Grotenhuis. Tokyo: Kodansha, 1977.

Kaminishi, Ikumi. Explaining Pictures: Buddhist Propaganda and Etoki Storytelling in Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2006.

Kaminishi, Ikumi. "Skillful Means (upāya) of the Courtesan as Bodhisattva Fugen: Maruyama Ōkyo's Lady Eguchi". In Gender, Continuity, and the Shaping of Modernity in the Arts of East Asia, 16th–20th Centuries. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2017.

Kanda Fusae. n.d. "Behind the Sensationalism: Images of a Decaying Corpse in Japanese Buddhist Art." The Art Bulletin 24–49.

Leidy, Denise Patry. The Art of Buddhism: An Introduction to its History and Meaning. Boston and London: Shambhala, 2008.

Levine, Gregory A. "Critical Zen Art History." Journal of Art Historiography 15 (2016): 1–30.

Levine Gregory P. A. 2005. Daitokuji: The Visual Cultures of a Zen Monastery. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

Levine Gregory P. and Yukio Lippit. Awakenings: Zen Figure Painting in Medieval Japan. New York: Japan Society, 2007.

Lippit, Yukio. "Of Modes and Manners in Japanese Ink Painting: Sesshū's 'Splashed Ink Landscape' of 1495." The Art Bulletin (2012): 50–77.

Lippit, Yukio and Getty Research Institute. Japanese Zen Buddhism and the Impossible Painting. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2017.

McCormick, Melissa. "Ōtagaki Rengetsu's Waka Poetics: Sentiment, Selfhood, and the Saigyō Persona." In Japan in the Age of Modernization : The Art of Ōtagaki Rengetsu and Tomioka Tessai. Washington D.C: Smithsonian Scholarly Press, 2023.

Morse, Anne Nishimura and Samuel Crowell Morse. Object As Insight: Japanese Buddhist Art & Ritual: Katonah Museum of Art. Katonah N.Y: Katonah Museum of Art and Museum of Fine Arts Boston, 1995.

Murase, Miyeko. Emaki: Narrative Scrolls from Japan. New York: The Asia Society, 1983: 15–28.

Obara, Hitoshi. "The Rebirth of Women into Paradise: Women in Fujiwara no Munetada's Diary Chūyūki (1087–1138)." Translated and adapted by Burton Watson. In Engendering Faith: Women and Buddhism in Premodern Japan, edited by Barbara Ruch, 441–62. Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, 2002.

O'Neal, Halle. "Inscribing Grief and Salvation: Embodiment and Medieval Reuse and Recycling in Buddhist Palimpsests." Artibus Asiae 79 (2019): 5–28.

O'Neal, Halle. "Reuse, Recycle, and Repurpose: The Afterlives of Japanese Material Culture." Ars Orientalis 52 (2022): 1–9.

Proser, Adriana, ed. Pilgrimage and Buddhist Art. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010, 14–37.

Rambelli, Fabio. "Materiality and Performativity of Sacred Texts." In Buddhist Materiality: A Cultural History of Objects in Japanese Buddhism, by Fabio Rambelli, 88–128. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007.

Rosenfield, John M. Preserving the Dharma: Hōzan Tankai and Japanese Buddhist Art of the Early Modern Era. Princeton New Jersey: P.Y. and Kinmay W. Tang Center for East Asian Art Department of Art and Archaeology Princeton University, 2015.

Saka, Chihiro. Datsueba the Clothes Snatcher: The Evolution of a Japanese Folk Deity from Hell Figure to Popular Savior. Leiden: Brill, 2022.

Sano, Emily J., Randall Laird Nadeau, and Alison J. Miller. Heaven and Hell: Salvation and Retribution in Pure Land Buddhism. San Antonio Texas: San Antonio Museum of Art, 2017.

Suzuki, Yui. Medicine Master Buddha: The Iconic Worship of Yakushi in Heian Japan. Leiden: Brill, 2012.

Tanabe, Willa. Paintings of the Lotus Sutra. New York: Weatherhill, 1988.

Ten Grotenhuis, Elizabeth. "Collapsing the Distinction Between Buddha and Believer: Human Hair in Japanese Esotericizing Embroideries." In Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia, edited by Charles Orzech and Richard Payne, 876–892. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2011. 

Vilbar, Sinéad and Kevin Gray Carr. Shinto: Discovery of the Divine in Japanese Art. Cleveland Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2019.

Walley, Akiko. "Instant Bliss: The Enactment of Miraculous Appearance of Relics in the Hōryūji Nested Reliquary Set," Ars Orientalis 46 (2016): 136–172.

Waters, Virginia Skord. "Sex, Lies, and the Illustrated Scroll: The Dōjōji Engi Emaki." Monumenta Nipponica 52, no. 1 (1997): 59–84.

Watsky, Andrew Mark. Chikubushima: Deploying the Sacred Arts in Momoyama Japan. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2004.

Winfield, Pamela D and Steven Heine. Zen and Material Culture. New York NY: Oxford University Press, 2017.

Yiengpruksawan, Mimi Hall. Hiraizumi: Buddhist Art and Regional Politics in Twelfth-Century Japan. Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Asia Center: Distributed by Harvard University Press, 1999.

Architecture

Chusid, Miriam. "Constructing the Afterlife, Re-envisioning Salvation: Enma Halls and Enma Veneration in Medieval Japan." Archives of Asian Art 69, no. 1 (Spring 2019): 21–53.

Gerhart, Karen M. The Eyes of Power: Art and Early Tokugawa Authority. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1999. 

McCallum, Donald F. The Four Great Temples: Buddhist Archaeology, Architecture, and Icons of Seventh-Century Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2009.

O'Neal, Halle and Paul Harrison. "Bodies of Words: Translating Sacred Text into Sacred Architecture in East Asian Buddhism." In Routledge Handbook of Translation and Religion, ed. Hephzibah Israel, 207–231. Oxon: Routledge, 2022.

Mandalas

Andrei, Talia J. "Ise Sankei Mandara and the Art of Fundraising in Medieval Japan." The Art Bulletin (2018): 68–96.

Hirasawa Caroline. Hell-Bent for Heaven in Tateyama Mandara: Painting and Religious Practice at a Japanese Mountain. Leiden: Brill, 2013.

O'Neal, Halle. Word Embodied the Jeweled Pagoda Mandalas in Japanese Buddhist Art. Boston: Brill, 2018.

Pradel María del Rosario. 2016. Fabricating the Tenjukoku Shūchō Mandara and Prince Shōtoku's Afterlives. Leiden: Brill, 2016.

Sharf, Robert H. "Visualization and Mandala in Shingon Buddhism." In Living Images: Japanese Buddhist Icons in Context, edited by Robert H. Sharf, and Elizabeth Horton Sharf, 151–197. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001.

Ten Grotenhuis, Elizabeth. Japanese Mandalas: Representations of Sacred Geography. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1999. 

Sculpture

Bogel, Cynthea J. 2009. With a Single Glance: Buddhist Icon and Early Mikkyō Vision. Seattle WA: University of Washington Press.

Brinker, Helmut and Helen Foresman Spencer Museum of Art. Secrets of the Sacred: Empowering Buddhist Images in Clear in Code and in Cache. 1st ed. Lawrence Seattle: Spencer Museum of Art University of Kansas ; in association with University of Washington Press, 2011.

Brinker, Helmut. "Facing the Unseen: On the Interior Adornment of Eizon's Iconic Body." Archives of Asian Art 50 (1997–98): 42–61.

Dobbins, James C. Behold the Buddha: Religious Meanings of Japanese Buddhist Icons, 25–50. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2020.

Fowler, Sherry D. Accounts and Images of Six Kannon in Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2016.

Glassman, Hank. The Face of Jizō: Image and Cult in Medieval Japanese Buddhism. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2012

Groner, Paul. "Icons and Relics in Eison's Religious Activities." In Living Images: Japanese Buddhist Icons in Context, edited by Robert H. Sharf and Elizabeth Horton Sharf, 114–150 and 230–39. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001.

Horton, Sarah J. Living Buddhist Statues in Early Medieval and Modern Japan. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007: 61–76.

McCallum, Donald F. Hakuhō Sculpture. Lawrence KS Seattle WA: Spencer Museum of Art the University of Kansas ; University of Washington Press, 2012.

McCallum, Donald F. Zenkōji And Its Icon: A Study in Medieval Japanese Religious Art. Princeton N.J: Princeton University Press, 1994.

Morse, Samuel C. "The Buddhist Transformation of Japan in the Ninth Century: The Case of Eleven-Headed Kannon." In Heian Japan: Centers and Peripheries, edited by Mikael S. Adolphson, Edward Kamens, and Stacie Matsumoto. 153–176. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2007.

Pedersen, Hillary. "Making Memories: The Conceptual Reuse of the Kakuanji Kokūzō Bosatsu Sculpture," Ars Orientalis 52 (2023).

Pradel, Chari. "Illuminating the Sacred Presence of Hasedera's Eleven-Headed Avalokiteśvara." Journal of Asian Humanities at Kyushu University 3 (2018): 87–113.

Rosenfield, John M. Portraits of Chōgen: The Transformation of Buddhist Art in Early Medieval Japan. Leiden: Brill, 2011.

Sharf Robert H and Elizabeth Horton Sharf. Living Images: Japanese Buddhist Icons in Context. Stanford Calif: Stanford University Press, 2001.

Sharf, Robert. "Prolegomenon to the Study of Japanese Buddhist Icon." In Living Images: Japanese Buddhist Icons in Context, edited by Robert H. Sharf and Elizabeth Horton Sharf, 1–18. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001.

Sharf, Robert. "The Scripture on the Production of Buddha Images." In Religions of China in Practice, edited by Donald S. Lopez, Jr., 261–67. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996.

Walley, Akiko. Constructing the Dharma King: The Hōryūji Shaka Triad and the Birth of the Prince Shōtoku Cult. Leiden: Brill, 2015.

Yen-Yi, Chan. "Revealing the Miraculous: Objects Placed inside the Statue of the Kōfukuji Nan'endō Fukūkenjaku Kannon." Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 49, no. 1 (2022): 45–88.

Yiengpruksawan, Mimi Hall. "The Phoenix Hall at Uji and the Symmetries of Replication." The Art Bulletin 77, no. 4 (1995): 647–672. 

Notes

The foundations of this reading list were generously provided by Carolyn Wargula and Halle O'Neal.

Suggest Additions

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